Shadow Boxing Read online

  Peyton was eerily still and deathly quiet. Her line of sight was locked on me. She wanted a fight, well I felt the need to give her a real one, for once. See how tough Peyton really was.

  Silence descended over the three of us and I was afraid to look over at Tarin for fear of what I might see on his face. He was on longer touching me and I doubted he wanted the most traumatic thing he’d experienced in his life, to be aired so callously, and publicly, and in front of his sister. Despite it affecting both of them. I was pretty sure that the event in question was not one they had ever discussed or talked about again, since being rescued by their older brother Shaye.

  “Tell her why they captured us.” Peyton said still locking eyes with me as she directed her question to Tarin. “Tell her.”

  “You know what, dinner is ruined. If you won’t go, then we will. Let’s go Tarin.” I pushed my chair out, but Tarin put a hand on my thigh lightly. I paused and looked at it and back at him.

  He angled his head slightly as if studying Peyton and sipped his wine glass slowly before putting it back down. “We were captured, because of what I did. That’s true and it wasn’t in anyway fair, that you went through what you did, because of me.”

  I looked at Tarin surprised, why was he doing this? “Tarin, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Apparently I do.” He replied picking up the wine glass again.

  “No you don’t.”

  “It’s the only way Peyton’s going to give us any information right sister?”

  Now I was intrigued and annoyed. I pushed my chair back in slightly and leaned on the table towards Peyton. “You know what the hell is going on here? Why all of this shit is happening?”

  She smiled over to the brim of her wine glass. The waiter brought our food to the table and we all held the awkward angry silence until he left us again. Nobody touched the food.

  “Begin,” Peyton said at Tarin.

  “We were captured by vampires, because of something I did. Only I didn’t know that at the time, not until it was too late.” Tarin looked over at me then. “My fangs appeared in my fourteenth year and with them, came a great yearning, along with all the hormonal things fourteen year old boys experience going into puberty. I was having trouble with the urges that brought my fangs out. I felt like there had to be something to cure the way they made me feel so overblown with a blood lust. But I couldn’t figure it, couldn’t find it, didn’t know how to handle the compulsion of my fangs.”

  I sipped my wine glass in fascination. I couldn’t believe Tarin was being so open with me, so forthright about something that was clearly a traumatic memory to him. All because his bitch sister was taunting him to for her own means.

  “Our father didn’t have a clue how to handle you. Shaye tried, but you were out of control.” Peyton said looking at her brother.

  “What about your mother?” I asked looking from Peyton to Tarin.

  “She wasn’t around. She left us. Walked out on us one day. Not to be seen again.”

  “Maybe something happened to her.” I suggested.

  Peyton looked at me dryly. “Grow up Katelyn, we don’t need to make excuses for everyone who’s a fuck up. Some of them just don’t care about their families.” Peyton waved a hand back at Tarin. “Go on, you’re not getting off that lightly.”

  “So I didn’t understand how to control the way the fangs made me feel. And I gave in.” Tarin paused to pick up his wine glass. “And I went out looking for something to satisfy them.”

  “And,” Peyton continued waving her brother on again. Tarin glared at her. “Okay, let’s approach this from a different angle.” Peyton turned her attention to me then.

  “There is only one reason my brother would hook up with you, and stay with you beyond a one night stand.”

  Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow at her in surprise. Only one reason, that kind of narrowed down the spectrum a fair bit didn’t it? “I’m going with phenomenal sex.” I said back at her picking up my wine glass.

  “No, that’s not it.”

  Tarin waited until I put my wine glass down again and grabbed my hand, before standing up. I stood up with him as he placed some cash on the table. “We’re done here Peyton.” Tarin muttered kicking his chair back as I walked around it with him.

  “What about the message?” I asked him softly. “The information we need.”

  He paused and looked back at Peyton. “She was never going to give us anything. Peyton is just doing what Peyton does best, it’s her nature, and we forget that sometimes, because she presents it so well into a ready situation.”

  I looked back at Peyton. “What’s her nature?”

  “Love and hate. Peyton considers it more like her gift, but it’s her Shadow Demon nature.” Peyton smiled at us both and picked at the otherwise untouched food on the table as Tarin jerked my hand and lead us out of the restaurant back into the night time on the street.

  “I don’t get it.” I said looking at him. “Are you saying everything she was just saying in there was a lie? None of it was real? I don’t get this whole demon nature thing you keep saying. It’s like, what you’re built on right? It’s the core of you’re biological make up.”

  “Yes, it’s what makes us demons.”

  “Help me out here, I’m still not getting something. You know this thing that is ingrained in you that makes up part of you, and yet, you allow situations to arise to use this, for lack of a better word, negative part of yourself, but for what? I mean how does that make you demon, anymore than I’m human? Not all of me is good all the time. I’ve got faults and flaws, I’m not perfect.” We walked down Greville Street in contemplative thought for a moment or two. “I mean, I always thought demons were about the horns and tails and scaly bits.”

  Tarin chuckled slightly. “Really, that old stereotype?”

  “Yeah. I just don’t understand how you can call yourself a demon, just because what, you have fangs and like to drink blood when you have sex? I mean, you look human!”

  Without warning Tarin pushes me around the side of a shop and up against the wall suddenly pressing himself into me, his eyes dark as he looked at me with desire, his fangs on display as he contemplated my mouth by the look of it.

  “A demon is a being of conflict. We’re not pure. We’re born to be torn, emotionally. To be compelled to do bad things, wrong things, to give in instead of use will power. We get off on the things that would disgust any rightful human. When I say my demon nature is seduction and deception I mean, I have to get a fix of that, to be truly satisfied.”

  “Sexually satisfied?” I husked at him.

  “No it’s more like, just in general. Demon’s aren’t about horns and tails and exterior horrors, we’re beings of internal horror and we get off on other people’s depending on our natures. We need to create situations if we can’t find them that placate these driving needs, like it’s water or air to us.”

  “What happens if you don’t?”

  “We go a little mad.” Tarin said softly, moving closer to my mouth.

  “Is that what happened when you were fourteen?” I asked watching the closeness of his fangs and feeling no fear. “Did you go a little mad from trying to deny your demon nature?”

  “Yes. So the vamps thought they’d teach me a lesson in true insanity. Peyton was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, with me.” I nodded my head in understanding. Tarin hated himself, because of how he was born, and he’d always been trying to control that demon side of himself. It was probably why he didn’t associate with his family. Less demon influence had to make life easier right?

  “Run those fangs around the inside of my lip.” I muttered softly as he closed in on me and did as instructed. His blonde hair blanketing the world either side of his handsome face.

  I opened my mouth so Tarin’s fangs could pull my lip down slightly and he could touch the soft interior between my gums and lip. He shuddered softly and I knew he wanted to do much, much more with those fangs and
me. Tarin pulled back slowly.

  “Did you just read me?” He asked, as his fangs snapped out of sight. I rubbed my thumb on one of his hands that was pining itself to me, as if to confirm his suspicion. Not that I need physical touch to read Tarin’s truth. I could ask for it from him and I was pretty sure he’d give it to me, like he had been. And also, being in close vicinity with him, was enough to get me a read on him too.

  “Yes.”

  Tarin straightened up and stopped touching me all together. “I thought you couldn’t you know, read me that I was a void to you.”

  I pushed off the wall. I shrugged my shoulders. “Most of the time, you are.”

  “But?” He asked crossing his arms over his chest.

  I sighed, I didn’t want to give the game away, but clearly I had to. He’d shut down on me the minute he knew how I could read him. The thought saddened me deeply. “But when you’re highly emotional, you’re vulnerable to being open, to me.” Tarin took a step back from me, giving us more space than I liked. He dropped his eyes off me and looked around our surroundings.

  “Don’t do that again, without my permission.”

  5

  I stayed still where I was as Tarin started to walk off, clearly expecting me to follow. My mouth may have been open a bit. I’ll admit, I was a bit stunned by his words. Hurt even. He turned around when he got to the corner where the railway pedestrian crossing was.

  “Coming?” He asked as if nothing was amiss at all.

  “No, I’m not coming.” I stated with obvious annoyance.

  Tarin sighed heavily and said “You know what I mean.”

  “And still, I’m not coming.” I replied angrily pushing off the wall. Tarin put both hands on his hips looking at me like he was exasperated with trying to understand my sudden snap in mood.

  “Alright, let’s have at it.” He said directly.

  “And here I was thinking, you didn’t like to fight.” I muttered watching him walk back towards me. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Tarin’s eyebrows shot up. “Meaning?”

  “Do you honestly think that I deliberately read you? That I would just do that any time, without your permission? Do you understand that being a truth-sayer means I have to consciously try not to read people? Why do you think I live alone, in an industrial area rather than a residential area?” My voice raised and I reigned myself back in. “Up until now mister Shadow Demon, I haven’t gotten anything off you. No vibes, no instinctual data to collect. You have been a void of nothing to my feelings. Do you understand how vulnerable that makes me feel? Being around that, all the time. Especially when it’s you.”

  “Meaning? He replied crossing his arms over his chest.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “You, you’re so aloof and confident and I have no idea where I stand with you. And yet, you think I’m just going to read you, at any time, you don’t have any trust in me and yet, you want me to just trust you, just do what you want me to do, for you. It works two ways Tarin this thing.” I said waving a hand back and forth between us to demonstrate some awkward point I was trying to make.

  “What thing?” Tarin asked me taking another step closer to me.

  “Whatever this is, between us. Being around each other.” Tarin smirked a little and kept walking slowly towards me, dropping his arms, closing the gap between us.

  “Oh you mean, this relationship?”

  I shook my head “This is not a relationship.” How could this possibly be a relationship? He’d tried to kill me once! We were on the run from paranormal beings who wanted either one of us dead or captured or both. I still didn’t know all that much about mister closed off here and weren’t relationships meant to be about two individuals with the same feelings, ideals and all that?

  “Really?”

  “Stop answering everything I say with a question!” Tarin was close to me again, within my personal space.

  “What would you call what we have between us then Katelyn?” His voice was low and husky and made my insides feel warm. His hands rested on my arms lightly and he looked into my eyes, blonde hair curtaining his face.

  “Why does it have to be called anything?” I muttered pathetically, my anger leaving me.

  “Because it has meaning, and this is how we give meaning to things that matter to us, we name them, call them things, so it makes it clearer in our heads and our hearts, where these type of things stand in our lives.” Tarin replied softly knocking me for a silent six. He might not speak a lot but when he did, wow, profoundness.

  “Why do you frown Katelyn?”

  This guy was confusing my brain, making me feel very addled. Tarin’s thumb brushed over the frown on my forehead. There seemed like an obvious question was there on the tip of my tongue to ask him. But I had far too much pride to voice it. Instead I said “Because of you.”

  “And we were doing so well, together.” Tarin replied softly and ducked his head, towards mine, gliding his lips across mine for a connecting kiss.

  I kissed him, kissed him back and kept kissing him. I could’ve gone on kissing Tarin for hours. I’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my life before. Tarin was as much my addiction as my blood was his. He broke the kiss first and panted a little in doing so.

  “Let’s go somewhere more private and you can continue to yell at me and I can continue to kiss you like that.”

  “Just like that.” I uttered, drawn in by the hardness of his body.

  “Just like that. Or if you want the fangs, you can have them too.” He said softly. I wondered if he wanted me to want the fangs, to say it out loud to him. But of course I wanted the fangs. Like I damn well wanted him. Talk about a living breathing version of lust and obsession, he was right in front of me.

  “Oh we are both so screwed.” I muttered in a low voice.

  “We will be.” He smiled at me slipping his hand into mine. “First relationship I’ve ever wanted to be in.”

  “Bet you say that too all the truth-sayers.” I replied lacing my fingers through his. “Let’s have at it then.”

  6

  Tarin hailed a taxi and we got inside it and I sat right beside him, our bodies touching one another from shoulder to hip and thigh as he directed the taxi back to his house. I asked why we were going back there given we’d just spent a week trying to outrun and hide those that had so far tried to kill us, kidnap us and were generally all around bad guys who had no good feelings for either of us.

  “I wish to make love to you, and that just isn’t going to work in that flea bag motel.” I nodded my head in understanding, I wasn’t beyond appreciating a bit of luxury. “Besides, if anyone wants to try and grab you, then you’ll be safer with me at my home, where I know every inch of it and how to defend ourselves in it.”

  “So chivalrous and yet I felt safer when I was hooking on the city streets on a Friday night.” I replied flippantly.

  “Don’t talk like that.” Tarin muttered looking outside his passenger side window as he spoke. He really did have a problem with what I had been doing for a living before he’d met me.

  “I just meant, when nobody knew who I was, before all of this happened. Are you jealous of all the anonymous but rigorous sex I had to have to have an income?”

  “Yes.” Tarin uttered almost inaudibly.

  “What? Tarin how could you possibly be jealous of all that? You do understand that was all I had to make money off, me? I didn’t go to school, I don’t have talents for anything other than this, than being me.” I said back at him. “I didn’t enjoy it you know. It was just a functionality, a necessity.”

  Tarin turned his head and looked at me then. “Well it’s not anymore. Don’t make me want to hurt all those males who were with you. It’ll drive me insane.”

  I sighed exasperated. “I wasn’t trying to make you insanely jealous, Jesus Tarin, what kind of woman do you take me for?”

  There was something in his eyes that should have warned me about him. But it was too late anyway,
so who was I to care. Tarin flipped me down on the back seat of the taxi cab.

  He leant his mouth to my ear and said “When he asks, tell him I’m you’re boyfriend Katelyn and I’ll reward you.” The driver as he glanced back at us, whilst trying to keep his eyes on the road, and taxi from swerving.

  “You alright miss?” the driver asked.

  “Yes, he’s my boyfriend.” I replied automatically without hesitation as Tarin kissed my neck and I felt my lower body region tighten in anticipation.

  “Well, okay but this is a taxi and,”

  Tarin held out a hand of notes towards the driver as he kept kissing my neck. “There’s a hundred on top of the fair if you just drive and pay no attention to us.” I saw the driver reach out for the notes in Tarin’s hand, taking them.

  My eyes went wide. “Kinky.” I whispered at him.

  “So much you don’t know about me.” Tarin replied undoing my jeans.

  “I could say the same.” I muttered softly as he slid a hand under the jeans material and began to rub me. I was wet very fast I’m ashamed to say. Tarin’s affect on me, I though laying there, enjoying every single sensation of being prepared for him penetrating me. Then a thought struck me.

  “What did Peyton mean by me siphoning off you?” I blurted out.

  “Now’s really not the time for that question Katelyn.” Tarin replied as he lowered his mouth to the unbuttoned part of my jeans. “I have a need,” He said allowing me to see his fangs in his mouth as he dragged them over the sensitive skin of my otherwise private flesh.

  “Jesus Tarin isn’t that going to uh, hurt like hell?” I said looking down my body at him. He’d tugged my jeans down my hips so I was on display before him. Tarin looked at me.

  “I can’t hold out any longer. I need to feel fang and flesh together with you. We could wait until we get back to the mansion or I could just…” He began scraping the tip of his fangs over the sensitive flesh of my body. I gasped and clamped a hand tightly over my mouth to stop from squealing. “It’ll hurt for a moment but I promise you the pleasure it’ll bring you, will wash that away in an instant.”